The Garment of Concentrated Evil
by Evilflyngmonkees
Summary: “Hermione,” he asked between chuckles, “are you talking to my jumper?” The first of several chapters detailing Hermione's trip to insanity and back.
1. Harried Hermione

**The Garment of Concentrated Evil**

Chapter One: Harried Hermione

_Disclaimer: If I was J.K. Rowling and I owned all the Harry Potter books why in the world do you think I would write Fanfiction about them? Obviously they're not mine._

It was just sitting there, mocking her.

Not that sweaters could mock, of course, but in Hermione's advanced state of insanity the Weasley sweater that seemed to be slung _oh so casually_ across the arm of the sofa seemed to taunt her with ferocity.

This was not the first time that this sweater had done it. For the past week or so, Ron seemed to be in the habit of leaving his sweater just lying around, saddling her with the responsibility of finding the garment of concentrated evil and return it to him. Then, once she had made the trek upstairs and presented it to him, he just grabbed it, muttered a thanks, and threw it into some corner. Then, just when she thought that she would see it no more, the next night, _there it was_! Slipped over a lamp or hiding under a chair, the accursed jumper seemed to laugh at her futile attempts to keep the common room tidy.

Yesterday Hermione had had enough. When she had found the jumper (tucked in a pile of her books), she grabbed it and ran up the stairs two at a time, before barging into the boys' dormitories and hurling it at Ron, screeching, "Take you bloody jumper, you idiot!" She had just enough time to catch a glimpse of his dumbstruck face before she fled.

'_As if he didn't know,_' she scoffed. But then, even after last night's wonderful display, the sweater had appeared, sitting on the sofa and smirking for all its wooly worth. Hermione didn't know what to do; she was at her wit's end with the jumper.

"Why must you torment me, you garment of concentrated evil," she whispered softly holding it loosely in her hands. But, apparently, her query wasn't soft enough. She heard guffaws behind her, and turned to see Ron looking at her bemusedly.

"Hermione," he asked between chuckles, "are you talking to my jumper?"

She turned bright red and then started mumbling about the weather, all the while just staring at her shoes and fiddling with her shirt cuff.

"You can tell me, you know, I won't," here he paused to make a few very suspicious sounding coughs, "make fun of you or anything, you know…" he trailed into suppressed laughter while trying to maintain a semblance of sincerity. But Hermione had taken enough. She refused to be laughed at, especially by Ron. She stood up and gathered her books with a righteous air, all the while ignoring Ron who had by now stopped trying to smother his laughter and was practically howling with mirth. She turned smartly on her heel and promptly tripped over the coffee table directly in front of her. This was too much for Ron, who collapsed with tears of merriment leaking out of the corners of his eyes.

Hermione, realizing that she had just lost any chance she had of retaining her dignity, got up and marched up to her room, stopping only to kick Ron rather hard in the shins for starting the whole thing. The sounds of his complaints followed her all the way up to her dormitory, until she viciously slammed the door, effectively muffling all sounds from the common room. As she dropped her books on the floor and prepared to collapse onto her four-poster, she noticed a bit of maroon peeking out from in between her books. She groaned and hid her face in her pillow.

She still had Ron's sweater.


	2. Tired Hermione

**The Garment of Concentrated Evil**

Chapter Two: Tired Hermione

_Disclaimer: If I was J.K. Rowling and I owned all the Harry Potter books why in the world do you think I would write Fanfiction about them? Obviously they're not mine._

Hermione couldn't sleep. The jumper had been transfigured into a maroon sock monkey, stuffed into a locked box, tied with magical ropes, sealed with all sorts of curses and spells and finally shoved under Lavenders bed, but Hermione couldn't get her mind off it. Well, technically, Hermione couldn't get her mind off the lean, lanky body that usually resided underneath the wooly garb. And how said body's hands constantly tugged on the not-quite-long-enough sleeves ("_that boy never seems to stop growing_," Mrs. Weasley remarked once to Hermione) until it was slightly warped but perfectly serviceable. And then how the bottom of sweater hung an inch or two over his pants, but when he teased her and held her books high over her head, the top of the jumper barely grazed the top of his pants, sometimes shifting to reveal pale freckled skin with a dusting of copper hair leading down toward..

But Hermione flushed and abruptly stopped that train of thought. _'Ron is my Friend, with a capital F. That stupid jumper is causing me to lose so much sleep that I am hallucinating about my friends in ways that I cannot possibly want. Next I expect I shall be thinking of Snape in one of those skimpy speed- Hogwarts a History Hogwarts a History Hogwarts a History Hogwarts a History...' _With a rather pained expression on her face and her eyes screwed tightly shut Hermione frantically repeated her mantra until she was sure that no unwanted images would spring unbidden into her mind. But even despite her best efforts, she could not Ron off her head, in particular, a scene of him earlier that week…

_Ron was sitting at a table, setting up a game of exploding snap to play against Harry with. Hermione was sitting nearby, her nose buried in "The House Elf: Servant or Slave?" by Subo R. Dinate. Just about to start what looked like a promising game, Ron noticed Neville, a notoriously bad snap player, eying the game with longing. Surprising Hermione as well as several others, Ron stood up and invited Neville over to join, which he happily accepted. After the game was over, Hermione stopped him and asked why he did it. To this Ron blushed, and then told Hermione, that "while there are always other games, there is not always time to play them with your friends." Hermione shocked, let him pass, but his kind words remained in her head for the rest of the night._

She finally went to sleep late that night with images of Ron dancing around her head, his sparkling blue eyes and dashing smile and laughing voice…


End file.
